Old Friends, New Adventures
by Booster1
Summary: A Girl And Her Time Lord 3 : Dawn, the Doctor, and the rest of our merry band discover even more hazards of traveling in the TARDIS when you're also the Key to all worlds.
1. Zen and the Art of TARDIS Maintenance

**Title:** Old Friends, New Adventures

**Setting:** Post-season 4 for Ten, way after Chosen for Dawn.

**Disclaimer:** They're not mine. They're not Morag's either.

**Summary: **Dawn, the Doctor, and the rest of our merry band discover even more hazards of traveling in the TARDIS when you're also the Key to all worlds.

**Author's Notes:** Written by myself and Morag MacPherson cliffhanger style, desperately trying to stump each other. Third in the_ A Girl and Her Time Lord_ series.

* * *

**Part 1 - Zen and the Art of TARDIS Maintenance  
(By MoragMacPherson)**

The Doctor raised his hands in triumph as the assembly he'd just installed underneath the console lit up with life. "Ladies, gentlemen, and lizards, we have a functioning time circuit!" He hopped up to his feet. "Thank you John, for the Klining crystal."

"Don't mention it." John wagged his wrist. "Wasn't near enough battery left in this to get me home on my own."

"When and where would you call that, then?" asked the Doctor.

John shrugged. "Oh, I'm in no particular rush. Time Agent, you know, we've got all the time in the universe."

"True that," said Clark.

"So when are we going now?" asked Dawn, placing Emort on the console.

"Twenty-first century Earth," said the Doctor, working various levers and knobs on the console, Dawn doing much the same on the other side. "Still need to get you that check-up, plus it's been ages since I spoke to Martha." The center column pulsed and pumped away. "Course, that means that Clark may need to man the TARDIS for a bit. And given Emort's track record, perhaps it's best that he sit this visit out."

Dawn stroked Emort protectively, glaring at John. "Don't get into too much trouble while we're gone," she told the vole.

With a shudder, the TARDIS finished materializing. Dawn peered at the monitor. "Looks like twenty-first century Earth to me." She grinned. "Can I check first?"

The Doctor smiled. "Go on, then."

Dawn dashed over to the doors, cracking them open.

"Doeth it look like a thpathe thtation?" asked Clark.

Dawn shook her head. "Looks like we've got Prince fans. They're all wearing raspberry berets."

John cracked a smile. "Those UNIT chaps did have a sense of style."

Just then Dawn was pushed aside, as Martha Jones ran into the TARDIS. "Doctor! Thank God you're here! We need you."


	2. This Isn't The Way This Normally Goes

**Part 2 – This Isn't The Way This Normally Goes  
(By Booster) **

Dawn was somewhat confused. "First Ms Pushy over there charges straight into the TARDIS, almost knocked me into one of the struts, and now she's standing in front of Captain John," she muttered, protectively cradling Emort.

Clark raised an eyebrow, and smiled slightly, and stood back to watch what the silly humanoids would do this time.

Martha Jones stood there still, in the middle of the TARDIS, staring expectantly at the man in front of her. "Doctor?" she repeated.

Captain John, resplendent in his new red and black old army tunic he'd 'borrowed' from the TARDIS wardrobe blinked. "Yesssss?" he ventured.

Martha scanned him quickly up and down, and then up again. "New regeneration? I like. Now quickly, Doctor – UNIT really needs your help. Your timing is immaculate."

Captain John's lip twitched in amusement. "But of course…Martha? I'd love to help you out."

Martha quickly looked around the rest of the TARDIS console room. "Better leave the bimbo behind for a change Doctor, and the lizard guy's going to stand out way too much," she said dismissively.

Dawn's jaw dropped, and Clark had no doubt that if Emort had been in his travel sphere, it would have been propelled in Martha's direction at a high velocity. Just in the interests of general discretion, he decided to step back a couple more feet. Just in case.

"Ahem!" said the Doctor indignantly, stepping out from behind the TARDIS console, "And what about me then?"

Martha looked at him, and then nodded approvingly. "Yeah, you'd do. You could pass for someone from this time period fine. And you are?"

The Doctor looked uncertainly at Martha. This was obviously no time for jokes, especially with all the UNIT soldiers waiting outside that he could on the monitor. And yet… there was something that just felt _wrong_ here.

"John Smith," he said slowly. "I just joined the Doctor's merry band of companions."

Captain John looked sharply at him. "Are you sure- - ?" he said, before the Doctor quickly jumped in. "Am I sure I want to see this strange future England, bDoctor/b? Oh yes, I want to see how much things are **changed**?"

He turned to Martha again, who was regarding them with a cool expression. "I used to be a teacher, you know," he said, watching Martha closely for any reaction whatsoever. "Back in 1913, at Farringham School. But that was before all that dreadful business with those scarecrows."

"Lovely," said Martha, "Now about our little UNIT problems? Shall we go?"

Dawn frowned. She didn't need the Doctor's little suggestions floating around in the back of her head to see just what was going to happen here. But she didn't have to like it… "Awww…" she piped up in her best bubblehead manner, and silently blessed Buffy for teaching her that particular set of tricks. "So, like, that mean that me and Clarkie can't come? That, like, totally blows chunks."

The Doctor and John shared a long look, while Martha stared at Dawn. John eventually sighed and shrugged. "Fine!" he declared loudly, "Niblet, you and thunthine stay in here, while 'John' and I go do UNIT's dirty work for them."

He strode off towards the TARDIS exit, and Martha quickly joined him, with the Doctor catching them up. "So, my dear, what appears to be the problem?" he boomed, as they exited.

"Well Doctor, there's three different problems that we seem to have right now…," trailed Martha's voice back inside the TARDIS.

The Doctor, as he exited, muttered "Oh, I kinda suspect there's a fourth one we already know about…."

He stuck his head back around the door suddenly. Pointing directly at Dawn, he placed his fingers to his mouth in a shushing gesture. "Behave!" he said, and then was gone again. The sound of several cars departing also drifted in.

Alone in the TARDIS, Dawn and Clarkie stared at each other. Dawn's expression darkened, and she stamped one foot in the ground. "That had better be some kind of possession or evil clone or… or something! Or I'm going find myself doing something to that bitch."

Clark decided not to say anything too placating. Last time he'd tried to do something when Dawn was this angry, she'd muttered something about 'handbags' that had chilled him to the bone. "Thould we do thomething? Monopoly?" he ventured, hoping a change of subject might work.

"Damn straight, Clark," said Dawn, and smiled evilly.

"First thing we do is sort you out," she said thoughtfully, studying Clark up and down. "There's nothing we can do effectively unless you can pass for human out there." She carefully placed Emort down on the console, turned away and started digging through the big pile of spare parts that the Doctor had dragged out to repair the TARDIS circuits.

Clark looked down at his scaled skin, then back at Dawn. "You and the Doctor both keep thaying that I'll never path for human in thith time thector."

"Aha!" said Dawn, pulling two particular pieces out of the jumbled pile of odds and sods. "Yes, well, the height's still gonna be a problem, but I think we can pass you off as a Harlem Globetrotter if we have to."

Crossing over to the Doctor's workbench, she activated his soldering iron, and started work on the parts she had there. "Gonna need your reading glasses, Clark. God, this would be so much easier if I had a sonic screwdriver. Note to self : build own sonic screwdriver."

Clark's brow furrowed in worry, but he obediently gave Dawn his glasses. Emort squeaked at them, and started licking his paws.

"That should do it. Try these on now, Clark."

Clark placed the slightly warm glasses on, carefully. Whatever machinery Dawn had added didn't seem to affect the weight at all. Dawn, watching him, whooped and hollered in glee. "Yes! I knew it would work!"

Taking pity on him, she decided to explain. "It's an adaptation of something the Doctor once did to a TARDIS key. One of those little background things I picked up as a result of our shared Time Lord link. Basically, it's a perception filter. Instead of people no longer noticing you like the Doctor did, this makes everyone who looks at you see an ordinary human being – but you have to be wearing them."

Clark blinked. "Tho we can go outthide now?"

"Yup," grinned Dawn. "Let's go surprise the others. Assuming they're still around here. Ms Pushy needs that stick removed from her ass after all."

Still smirking, Dawn couldn't resist one final touch before they left the TARDIS. "Anyone asks, say your name is Kent, k? Consider this your secret human identity."


	3. The Abyss Looks Back

**Part 3 – The Abyss Looks Back  
(By Morag MacPherson) **

'The Doctor' tugged on the actual Doctor's sleeve, whispering, "Any ideas about what's going on here, Frecks?"

"As a mere schoolteacher from the Edwardian age I could hardly tell you," said the Doctor.

"Yes, but as the last survivor of Gallifrey, what could he tell me?"

The Doctor took a surreptitious look at Martha's back. "Farringham School was one of the worst experiences of my Martha's life. This one didn't even bat an eyelash. I'm guessing that when she traveled with her Doctor, who looks a good deal like you, they never made it there."

"You mean we're in another dimension?"

"That's my best guess, yes," said John Smith.

Captain John smirked. "The other one of you has better taste."

"Regeneration doesn't work like that," protested the Doctor, but now Martha had turned around.

"As you can see on the monitors, Doctor, there's been a major breach in the Void."

John gave the various displays a cursory glance. "Yes, I do see that.

What are the other two problems, then?"

Martha gave John an exasperated look. "You do remember what we banished to the Void, don't you."

"Oh yes," he said. "How could I forget?"

Crowds of UNIT soldiers rushed back and forth in the hallways, not giving Clark a second glance. "Pretty buthy around here," said Clark.

Dawn watched the formations. "That Martha woman said they had a bunch of problems. Let's see what we can solve." On a lark, Dawn tried a door. To her delight it was the confiscated alien property room. "Awesome! I can build that sonic screwdriver. Oooh, and is that a Varnasian bowel disruptor? I think that it is." Dawn grabbed the pistol and clipped it around a belt loop. "I'll just be saving that for when we see Martha next, oh yes."

For the next several minutes Clark simply stood back as Dawn made a catalogue of the available parts. "The funny thing about building a sonic screwdriver is that it's easier to build one when you already have one lying around."

"Thould have thwiped it from the Doctor before they left," said Clark as he eyed the parts that Dawn assembled around her. "Tho you're pulling all of thith information from inthide the Doctor'th head."

"This stuff? No, this is something that I asked the TARDIS about. If you can be bothered to listen to her, which I guess the Doctor doesn't half of the time to hear her tell it, she'll tell you all sorts of stuff, like the best available revenge," Dawn caressed the gun at her side, "and how to build a sonic screwdriver. I haven't checked in on the Doctor since we got here."

Clark's tail swished. "Don't you think it would be a good idea to have a lookthie, theeing ath there'th tho many problemth here?" But Dawn was way ahead of him. Her eyes filled with horror. "What ith it?"

"Daleks and Cybermen! I was in the TARDIS, the Void was in the TARDIS, they hooked onto us, so we just pulled them right through into another dimension!"


	4. Should Olde Acquaintance Be Forgot…

Author's note - sorry for the long delay in posting this. It's been ready to go for ages, but things just kept getting in the way. Also, many, many thanks to whoever nominated this fic for the **Wicked Awards** Best Crossover! Totally appreciated!

**Part 4 – Should Olde Acquaintance Be Forgot….  
(By Booster) **

Martha led 'the Doctor' and 'John Smith' outside the building to a large grassy, open area. "Time remaining till incursion?" she snapped at a nearby UNIT soldier.

"Two minutes 57 maam!"

Martha nodded, then turned to the others. "One moment, Doctor – I just need to confirm these readings. Don't worry, I'll be back before it happens." And she walked away to join a group of scientists off to the side.

"Doc?" said John quietly, "If she's your friend and all, even if she is from a parallel universe, why aren't we telling her that I'm not the Doctor?"

The Doctor wore a puzzled frown, and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Because I might not be right after all. Everything here is exactly the same as I know it from previous visits to UNIT, down to the very people. And then there's the TARDIS..."

John raised an eyebrow when the Doctor didn't continue. "Doc? Freckles?"

"Hmmm? Oh yes, the TARDIS is perfectly fine. Absolutely nothing wrong with her at all. But the last time we were on a parallel earth, she was dying, John. Couldn't absorb the energy from around her. Which makes me think that we are where we should be... but doesn't explain Martha."

"Speaking of the devil..." said John, as Martha rejoined them. "And what precisely is meant to be happening any moment now?"

Martha smiled. "Oh, I know how much you like your little cat-out-of-bag moments, Doctor. Don't spoil mine."

Before them, the air seemed to ripple momentarily. An expectant air spread around the waiting and watching people. UNIT soldiers clicked the safeties off their weapons, scientists bent over their equipment. John and the Doctor shared a puzzled glance.

And then the space in front of them was suddenly full of Daleks and Cybermen materialising from nowhere.

Their guns blazed, explosions boomed and the dying started.

* * *

Clark grabbed the shaking Dawn by the shoulders and shook her firmly. "Calm down," he ordered her firmly, "It'th not your fault! Thith ith obviously what Martha wanth the Doctor to thort out, which means it'th a pre-exithing condition!"

Dawn took in a couple of deep, rasping breaths, and looked desperately at Clark. "Not me? Not again?" she said in a small voice.

"No," said Clark firmly, and hugged her hard. "I don't know what happened to you before, but thith is nothing to do with you."

A small, strained voice emerged from near Clark's chest. "Thank you, Clark... um, getting difficult to breathe here.."

Clark grinned and released her. Dawn looked a lot more calmer now, though he pretended not to see her wipe a tear away. "Sorry," she eventually said, "Bad flashback to when my sister died."

She straightened herself up, and adjusted herself. "Right!" she declared firmly, "Things to do, people to see, Daleks and Cybermen to sort out."

She looked around the alien property room again, and her eye fell on a crate. "Aha! That should come in helpful."

Clark followed her over there, puzzled as to what Dawn was going to do this time. His eyes widened as she started pulling out items of familiar looking clothing, but it was the raspberry beret that had him backing away.

"I am not wearing one of thothe crimeth againtht fathion. No."

"Come on, Clark... just think about it. In UNIT uniform, we can go anywhere – particularly when you throw in my new sonic screwdriver and this psychic paper," Dawn pleaded.

Clark sighed. He had a bad feeling about this. "...Can I at leatht keep my cowboy hat on?"

* * *

John popped his head up from behind the UNIT soldier he'd jumped behind when the shooting started. For all the noise, there had been a distinct lack of... actual explosions and bullets flying near him. Not that he was all that much of an expert, mind you.

The Doctor and Martha were both regarding him with raised eyebrows. John coughed and sauntered out. "Sorry 'bout that. Looks like this new regeneration's a bit more allergic to gunfire than I'd realised. Hard-wired reflexes, don't you know?"

The Doctor glared. Martha's face cleared right up though, which was all John really cared about. He looked straight ahead at the fight between the Daleks and Cybermen which was drawing to its final conclusion. As the last remaining Cyberman attempted to delete a Dalek's eyestalk, John's practised eye noticed that for all of the explosions that had been occuring, everyone else was still unhurt and attending to their tasks. None of the surrounding area had been damaged either.

"Temporal phantoms," said the Doctor thoughtfully, his glasses on and peering intently at the battle. "Not only are they slightly out of synch with the timeline, but I'm guessing from the way you checked the time, that they're on a repeating, predictable loop."

"Very good, Mr Smith!" said Martha, with a surprised look on her face. "Every two hours, thirteen minutes. Not bad at all for a school teacher from last century."

The Doctor froze. "Ah..."

"There was a bit of an 'accident'," said John smoothly, putting in the air quotes. "John here got exposed to the TARDIS databanks mentally and got a copy of most of them stuck in his head. Explains all his mental problems as well. Kinda like having a walking database with me."

Martha seemed to be regarding 'John Smith' with a strange sort of hunger in her eyes. "Is that so..." she breathed.

* * *

Somewhere nearby, in a hidden control room, a hand moved across a console. The console itself was made of a strange, gnarled, fibrous material, almost like it had been grown instead of constructed. The room was filled with a high pitched, monotonous electronic gurgling.

The orange hand stroked a nodule and the picture on the viewscreen closed in for a greater view of 'John Smith'.

"Intriguing," the owner of the claw-like hand hissed, "This Smith could be very useful. Take him to the machinery at once."

* * *

Martha nodded, as if to herself. "There's something else you should see now, Doctor," she said. "Shall we go?"


	5. Doors and What Lurks Behind Them

**Part 5 - Doors and What Lurks Behind Them  
(By MoragMacPherson) **

"I feel ridiculouth," said Clark, his serpentine head now topped with a berry-colored beret. "How in the world thith ith thupothed to theem macho ith beyond me."

Dawn smiled. "Let's just hope we don't run into the guy who your uniform is supposed to fit. They're growing them tall in Britain these days, I guess." She rolled up the sleeves on her new uniform.

"At leatht they're making them out of cotton. Cotton breatheth." He strapped his gun belt around his waist. "Tho, fearleth leader, where to next?"

"Well, I've got a brand new sonic screwdriver and piece of psychic paper. Then again, I also have a bowel disruptor." Dawn sighed. "Much as I'd like to test the bowel disruptor on Martha, I suppose we should find a computer terminal for me to gather information from first."

Dawn peeked out the door first, then Clark followed. Around the corner there was a large door guarded by two stern-looking UNIT soldiers. Probably top men. Dawn chose to deal with this by ignoring them completely and striding straight through the doorway. She did this so well that by the time Clark was passing through the soldiers had saluted her passage. He used his tail to slam the door shut behind them. "Well done, Dawn," he said.

Dawn smirked. "It's a good thing that the schools aren't as good here as they are in Mbatanoss." She sat herself down in front of the main computer terminal. "Now, let's see what's up with the Daleks and Cybermen."

There weren't nearly as many soldiers crowding this portion of the UNIT facility, the Doctor noted. The corridors themselves seemed darker and poorly lit in comparison, just enough to give him the willies*.

Captain John was either oblivious or an excellent actor, blithely conversing with Martha about the weather and relative fit of the UNIT uniform on her ample curves. Martha didn't seem to react to any of his digs, which notched up the willies to 1.5** "Doctor, you shouldn't," was her only response as she guided them down the hall.

John held back a few steps and to fall in line with the Doctor. "You're right. There's definitely something wrong here," he whispered. "I should have her phone number by now."

"Don't give anything away, just keep up the banter, would you?" hissed the Doctor. He swatted John on the butt for good measure, and the Time Agent scurried back to the lead position with Martha.

"So where is this machine room you mentioned?" he asked.

Martha turned and grinned. "Right through here, Doctor." She pushed the adjacent door open.

Both the Doctor and John Smith peered in. "Oh, shit," said the Doctor, "I was really hoping it wouldn't be that."

* * *

*A mere 1.2 on the Doctor's personal scale of the willies, where 1 willie represents finding a pair of his companion's discarded panties dangling from the railings, and a 10 represents Davros attempting to give him a tongue kiss.

** Jack Harkness announcing he's discovered a new use for any piece of hardware on the TARDIS.


	6. In Which the Tone Lowers Even More

**Part 6 – In Which the Tone Lowers Even More  
(By Booster) **

It was big, it was orange and it looked like a pile of faceted dull crystals connected together by roots and ganglia. It sat there in the middle of the room on a bare table, almost staring banefully at the three humanoids in the doorway.

"I hope you're up on your organic crystallography, 'Doctor'," said 'John Smith' with a certain amount of relish. "That much I can recognise, but the details are way beyond me."

John Hart flashed him a grin of triumph. "Fifth year University course, mate. Studied under Professor Jerusalem himself." His face fell slightly as he flicked one of the crystals with his fingernail, and a dull tone rang out flatly. "Huh," he eventually said, examining the connections to the ganglia. "That's well and truly buggered, ain't it?"

Momentarily, Martha's face flickered into an expression of horror, before rapidly returning to normal. "But you can repair it, Doctor? I'm sure we can obtain any parts you require."

"Honestly? I'm not even sure what it's meant to do in the first place, luv. You might be better off junking it totally."

"No!" said Martha quickly, "We're fairly sure it's got something to do with the Daleks and Cybermen ghosts, so we'd prefer it to be repaired."

"Good point," said the Doctor thoughtfully, and bent down to look closely at the blob before him. Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he bent forward to prod one ganglia in particular, only to jump back as a spark of electricity leapt forward, stinging his fingers.

"Careful, Freckles," smirked John, taking out the sonic screwdriver from his pockets and waving it around above the orange thing.

The Doctor stared at him, then began franticly patting down the pockets in his brown suit. "Hey! The sonic screwdriver..!"

John raised one eyebrow in his direction, sighed very loudly, and offered the screwdriver back to the Doctor. "What do you think of these readings, Mr Smith?"

The Doctor almost snatched it back, but remembered Martha was standing by the door just in time. "You have no idea what you're doing with it at all, do you?" he muttered, starting his own scans.

"Quite right, Mr Smith," boomed John cheerfully, "I do believe that to be the case." He waggled his eyebrows enticingly in Martha's direction, which she ignored. The Doctor's willies went up to 2.2*.

"At a rough guess, I'd say it was some kind of postbiological enviromental network integrated system, probably connected to a warp drive of some kind which again probably crashed, leaving the vortex intermittently connecting through to our world. If you could reactivate it and reset it to local coordinates, it might stop."

"That's a pretty exact rough guess, Freckles," said John, impressed. "Wait…., did you just say 'Postbiological Enviromental Network Integrated System'?"

The Doctor nodded absently, and continued looking closely at the crystals before him, completely missing the expression on John's face. "And how… how would you reset it?" John managed to get out in a strangled tone.

"Oh, some sort of Local Integrated Co-ordinates Knowledge unit should be easy enough to create."

Captain John Hart lost it completely at that point.

* * *

"That's funny," said Dawn thoughtfully, fingers flying across the keyboard. Her search of the local UNIT files had produced tons of information, but not quite what she was looking for.

"What ith?" rumbled Clark from where he was keeping watch by the door.

"I'm getting different readings across all the different scientists' reports as they're studying the temporal phantoms. Probably nothing, but it's still nagging me…"

"Well, how are you thearching their findingth?"

Dawn frowned. "Alphabetically, of course. Start with Professor Abbot, read all his reports, move on to Dr Carter. Why?"

"Jutht thinking out loud. The quicker we get thith over with, the quicker I can remove thith thupid berry thing."

"Beret, not berry," Dawn said absently and returned to her searches. "Maybe I'm thinking too 3-D this time. Maybe I should take it one step further…"

An idea hit her, and she typed away furiously on the keyboard for a moment. Her face turned white as she stared at the results. "Oh god," she whispered, "It's just a matter of time."

She felt Clark's reassuring presence beside her, but couldn't take her eyes away from the screen. "I put all the data together, but this time in chronological order. The loop… the loop is failing…. Some point soon, the intervals between the appearances of the Daleks and Cybermen will get smaller and smaller until they achieve a one-to-one ratio with our timeline."

"You mean they'll be actually phythically prethcent here?"

"And then all that killing and dying we see, will be us instead."

* * *

In a hidden control room, the watching figure turned away from the viewscreen where Captain John was still rolling about on the floor, laughing hysterically.

"Bah!" he hissed, before turning to his companion. Raising his claw-like hand, he pointed at the two humanoids on the screen. "I trust this Doctor very little. This Smith may come in useful, but the Doctor may well be too dangerous to let live for long."

His companion studied the screen intently. "Yes, I have memories of his resourcefulness."

"Find this TARDIS of his and secure it elsewhere. I feel it is best that we have another threat to use if he should choose not to repair our equipment. Those companions of his remaining within should prove sufficient inducement."

"I obey, leader," saluted Captain Erisa Magambo, the British UNIT commander, and left.

* * *

2.2 on the Doctor's willie scale of course, being the point where he's introduced to his companion's mother for the first time, rising to 2.3 if their arm shows any sign of twitchiness.


End file.
